


no sleep 'til

by tripcyclone



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, M/M, Making Out, Mild Consent Issues, Secret Crush, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripcyclone/pseuds/tripcyclone
Summary: Two days before Onsen on Ice, while Victor's out on an all-night bender, Yuuri and Yuri are left to figure outerosandagapeon their own.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 12
Kudos: 226
Collections: Anime FF, Rare Ships!!! on BINGO 2020





	no sleep 'til

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Rare Ships!!! on BINGO](https://rareshipsonbingo.dreamwidth.org/) challenge, for the prompt **"Day and night."**

The waterfall doesn’t work.

Of course it doesn’t. _“Go meditate under a waterfall”_ is something out of a shitty movie, not real life. Yuri’s pretty sure Yakov never made Victor stand under a waterfall. In fact, it sounds like the kind of thing Yakov would tell Victor _not_ to do. Yuri can imagine Victor standing under the thundering water with a smug smile on his face, while Yakov stands on the riverbank, red-faced and shouting, _“You’re only going to give yourself a headache, you stupid boy!”_

Yuri has a headache. Yuri’s had a permanent headache since he got to Japan, and the thundering water is just making it worse. Before he and Yuuri left the rink, Victor airily rattled off a list of words for him to ponder, and Yuri spent the first five minutes under the waterfall legitimately pondering them, like a chump:

_Agape._

_Selfless_.

_Unconditional._

_Uncalculating._

_God’s infinite love._

God doesn’t love Yuri. God put Yuri under this waterfall, and so He’s to blame for this fucking headache.

Yuri steps forward until the unrelenting pressure on his head abates, and he spends a quiet minute rubbing his temples and glaring at the gorgeous landscape in front of him. The clear water, the lush trees, the sunlight filtering through the clouds—everything around him is beautiful and sparkling with God’s love, and all Yuri can think about is strangling Victor Nikiforov to death with the sodden tie of his robe.

He looks back and sees that Yuuri hasn’t moved. He’s standing under the water with his eyes closed, his head bent, his hands prayerful. Yuri has no idea what Yuuri’s thinking, but the asshole _looks_ like he understands _agape._ He looks like he’s having very kind and loving thoughts about humanity in general. Yuuri’s dark hair is plastered to his forehead, and the soaked fabric of his robe is clinging to his body, translucent, and through it Yuri can make out the pink of Yuuri’s skin and the definition of his muscles and the vague outline of his dick against his leg. Yuri has seen Yuuri’s dick four times in the hot springs this week, not that he’s counting, and as far as he’s concerned it’s an act of cosmic sabotage. How is Yuri supposed to figure out _agape_ when the universe keeps shoving _eros_ in his face?

“Oi, Katsudon,” he says. He grabs Yuuri by the wrist and pulls him out of the path of the water. Yuuri blinks at him, water beading on his eyelashes. “I have a headache. Let’s go back.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “Yeah, okay.”

He’s quiet and withdrawn as they wade back to the riverbank. “Did you actually go into a fucking waterfall trance?” Yuri asks.

“No,” Yuuri says. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

Yuuri says, blandly, “What I’ll do if Victor goes back to Russia.”

Yuri frowns sharply at him. Yuuri’s been struggling with his short program theme as much as Yuri, but at least his insane decision to equate _eros_ with katsudon is _something_. Yuri has absolutely nothing. Why is _Yuuri_ the one sounding so defeated all of a sudden?

Yuri smacks his hand against the water and splashes Yuuri straight in his downcast face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demands. “What kind of asshole gives up on himself before the competition even starts? I’m gonna beat you because I’m _better_ than you, not because you rolled over like some stupid—depressed—idiotic— _loser_ —”

He punctuates each word with a new smack of water into Yuuri’s face and Yuuri shields himself with his hands. “All right, _all right,_ _”_ Yuuri sputters. “I get it.”

Yuri gives him one last splash for emphasis. “I’ll tell you what you’ll do without Victor,” he says. “You’ll get literally any other coach on Earth and save yourself from a year-long headache. Fuck, I hate him.” He levels a finger at Yuuri. “I’m going to win, Victor’s going to come back to Russia and coach me, and then I’m going to _murder myself_ because I _fucking hate him_.”

Yuuri smiles rustily and thumbs the water out of his eyes. “I guess it’s supposed to be like this, isn’t it?” he says. “You have to struggle with the problem at first, so the answer means more when you find it.”

“When you struggle with a problem you’re supposed to have _help_ ,” Yuri says. “A fucking waterfall is not _help_. I’m so sick of his bullshit.”

“Maybe we could tell Victor we need more than he’s giving us,” Yuuri concedes. “A more focused set of directions, or something. Since both of us are struggling so much.”

It’s the best idea Yuri’s heard all day. Victor ignores all of Yuri’s complaints, but he’s not going to ignore the guy he traveled halfway around the world to fuck. “Do you think he’s still at the rink?” Yuri asks.

“It’s almost dinnertime. He’s probably back at the onsen.”

Yuri starts pushing through the water faster. He’s worn out from how hard they’ve been training, but rage always gives him new strength. “Then hurry up, let’s go!”

...

Victor’s not at the onsen.

Neither of them have his cellphone number, so Yuuri texts Yuuko, and she says Victor isn’t at the rink, either. They check Victor’s Instagram and find he last updated an hour ago, but it’s just a picture of Hasetsu’s ocean, sparkling in the mid-afternoon sunshine. It could’ve been taken anywhere. Yuri starts to type a furious comment on it, then backspaces the words away. He’s already been officially reprimanded for using profanity on social media. He’s not going to risk getting in trouble just to give Victor a message that he plans on giving him in person, repeatedly, the second Victor’s within kicking distance.

He goes into his storage closet of a bedroom and changes into dry clothes. Without an outlet, Yuri’s rage is starting to curdle in his stomach. What’s so infuriating is that Yuri _knows_ he’s getting better at his short program; every day his muscle memory gets a little stronger and his stamina carries him a little farther. It’s a world-class program, one that Victor himself would skate in competition, and Yuri’s making it work. Anyone else in the skating world would be impressed by how much he’s done with it in less than a week.

But without the emotional core of _agape,_ Victor doesn’t care. Until Yuri can successfully pretend that _selfless, uncalculating_ _love_ actually exists in this stupid world, all his skill means nothing.

Yuri goes back out into Victor’s room. He doesn’t really care that the storage closet is small—his room back in St. Petersburg isn’t that much bigger—but the fact that it’s attached to Victor’s huge, obnoxiously decorated room makes him grind his teeth. He goes over and kicks one of the pillows off of Victor’s neatly made bed. Literally the only good thing about sleeping six feet away from Victor is that it blocks him from trying to sleep with Yuuri. Yuri can hear every goddamn sound Victor makes through the sliding door, and if Victor ever convinces Yuuri to come into his room and figure out _eros_ on top of his dick, Yuri will be there to throw his suitcase at them.

“Yurio?” Yuuri leans into the doorway, his damp black hair sticking up at weird angles. “Victor just updated his Instagram again. He went out to Nagahama Ramen for dinner.”

Yuri whips out his phone to check for himself. Victor’s posted a picture of his ramen bowl, full to almost overflowing, the broth just _glistening_ with fat. It looks so good Yuri’s stomach growls. He hasn’t eaten anything since lunch, and since then he’s had a two-hour practice session and waded through a fucking _river._ “Let’s get there before he finishes eating,” Yuri says. “How far away is it?”

Yuuri looks doubtful. “If we jog, we can probably get there in twenty minutes.”

For a second Yuri feels doubtful, too: he’s already drained from the skating and river-wading. But if they don’t find Victor now, Yuri knows he’ll just fall asleep no closer to _agape_ than he was before. And Yuri is going to _win_ this competition. If that means suffering, he’ll suffer.

“Twenty minutes?” Yuri scoffs. “Easy. Let’s go.”

...

Victor’s not at Nagahama Ramen.

Yuri spends a full minute in denial as he scans the faces of every patron sitting nearby. It’s a pointless exercise; Victor sticks out everywhere he goes in Japan. Yuuri goes to talk to someone behind the counter, and while Yuri doesn’t understand what he’s saying, he’s clearly describing Victor, with one hand raised above his head to indicate _tall._ Then Yuuri turns and makes a gesture toward Yuri, as if to say _like him,_ and Yuri seethes. He hates being compared to Victor. Ever since he entered Juniors, people have treated him like Victor Nikiforov 2.0, like Yuri’s just a piece they can slot into the space Victor left behind. But Yuri is _nothing_ like Victor. Victor has shitty taste in music and shitty taste in art and he thinks he’s so _deep,_ making them stand under waterfalls like they’re characters in the shitty books he reads. Victor makes and breaks promises like they’re nothing. He’s completely forgotten what it’s like to struggle to get by.

Yuri never will.

The man Yuuri’s talking to makes a gesture with his hand. _Gone_ , he indicates. Yuuri thanks him and weaves his way back to Yuri. “He left a little while ago,” Yuuri says. “I guess he ate fast.”

Yuri inhales, gearing up to say something loud and profane, but the savory smell in the air just makes his stomach growl again. “Ugh,” Yuri says, deflating. “I’m starving.”

“Did you want to eat here?”

Yuuri’s been eating sad-looking plates of fish and vegetables all week in his quest to slim down. “Are you _allowed?_ _”_ Yuri asks unkindly.

Yuuri shrugs. “Victor’s not here, so who’s going to stop me?”

“Not me,” Yuri says. “Load yourself up, it’ll make it easier for me to win.”

So they order and cram themselves into a pair of seats by the counter. The restaurant is so warm that they both take off their jackets, and their seats are so close that the bare skin of Yuuri’s arm presses stickily against Yuri’s. Yuri thinks about complaining and doesn’t. “I wonder what Victor will do if neither of us figures it out in time,” Yuuri says.

“He’ll just decide not to coach either of us and go back to skating,” Yuri says. “And then we’re both fucked.”

Yuuri gives him a sidelong look. “You don’t think you can beat him?”

“I’m not an _idiot,”_ Yuri says. “He’s got five quads. I’ve got a much better chance if I’m only facing, like, Chris Giacometti or that Canadian douchebag.”

“Hmm,” Yuuri says. Hopefully he noticed that Yuri left _him_ off the list of people to worry about. “They both have the quad Lutz, though.”

Yuri snorts. “Like it matters. Chris is inconsistent and JJ’s all jumps and nothing else.”

Yuuri looks surprised. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to what your competitors were doing.”

“I shit-talk you assholes all the time with Mila,” Yuri says. “And Georgi has some pretty strong opinions once you get him going, too.”

“What about Victor?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “He won Worlds by thirty points. He doesn’t _need_ to have opinions about anyone.”

Their ramen arrives, and the conversation temporarily halts as they both start shoveling it into their mouths. When they finally start slowing down, Yuuri has a cloudy, satisfied look in his eyes. “So what do you and Mila and Georgi say about me?” he asks.

Maybe he thinks Yuri’s answer will be nicer now that Yuri’s gotten some salt and fat into his system. He’s not wrong; Yuri is feeling a lot more benevolent toward the world after inhaling half his bowl. “That your jumps are shit and your step sequences are good,” Yuri says. “The same thing everyone says.”

He leaves out the fact that Mila says Yuuri’s step sequences are _amazing, really top-tier quality, you could learn something from him, Yura_. And he leaves out Georgi’s slightly envious _he feels so deeply, you can see it in all of his movements, every part of his body is telling the story._ Yuuri already knows what his strengths are: he doesn’t need to get all puffed up over them.

“You and I are kind of opposites, in that way,” Yuuri says thoughtfully. “I have problems with my jumps, but I can get a high PCS to compensate. Jumps are your strong suit, but your step sequences are lacking.”

It takes a couple seconds for the words to filter through the satiated haze in Yuri’s brain. _“Lacking?”_ he spits. “What the fuck do you—”

“It’s Victor’s word, not mine,” Yuuri says. “He said it to you twice this morning.”

“I don’t give a fuck what _Victor_ thinks,” Yuri says. It feels good to say, even if it’s not strictly true. “What word would _you_ use, now that you suddenly have opinions about me?”

Yuuri thinks about it for a second. “Lazy,” he says. “You’ve been trying harder since you got here, but you’ve been neglecting that part of your skill-set your whole career.”

He says it with such unapologetic matter-of-factness that Yuri is momentarily thrown, unable to scrape up a retort. Yuuri takes another bite of his ramen, calmly, like he hasn’t just shown more backbone than Yuri’s ever witnessed. Yuri finally manages to say, with less bite than he intends, “What do _you_ know about my whole career?”

“I’ve seen most of your performances from Juniors,” Yuuri says. “I have to pay attention to my competition, too.”

Yuri feels a traitorous lightness in his stomach. He looks down and starts shoveling ramen into his mouth again, a little too fast. Yuuri Katsuki is an international embarrassment who can barely land a quad Salchow, and his attention should mean nothing to Yuri. Less than nothing. Especially since he just insulted Yuri right to his face.

But—

Up until his free skate in Sochi, Yuuri wasn’t the world’s _worst_ skater. Mila and Georgi’s compliments had some truth in them. When Yuri watched Yuuri’s short program performance in Sochi, it felt like he was seeing something _interesting_ for once, not just Victor’s empty brilliance or the millionth version of Chris Giacometti getting to third base with himself on ice. Yuuri moved with confidence, even if his quads were shaky, and at least he _landed_ those jumps, rather than just wiping out over and over like he did in his free skate.

Fuck, there’s no point in lying to himself: if the Yuuri Katsuki who finished his short program four points out of third place had stepped off the ice and told Yuri _“I’ve seen most of your performances from Juniors,”_ Yuri would’ve been excited. Yuri would’ve cared what he had to say.

Where the fuck did _that_ Yuuri Katsuki go in the last four months?

“Oh!” Yuuri says suddenly, chopsticks halting halfway to his mouth. He’s peering down at his phone on the table, trying not to drip broth on the screen. “Victor posted another photo. He’s at a bar.”

Yuri reaches over and swivels Yuuri’s phone around to see. It’s a picture of a glass filled with luminescent green liquor. **_A Midori sour to get the night started!_** reads the caption.

“Get the night _started?”_ Yuri says in disbelief. “The competition’s in two days and he’s off having a _night on the town?”_

Even Yuuri looks a little dubious, and his tolerance for Victor’s bullshit is way higher than Yuri’s. “Where’s this bar?” Yuri asks, quickly slurping up the last of his noodles.

“You wouldn’t be able to go inside.”

“ _I_ don’t need to go inside,” Yuri says. _“You_ need to go inside and drag his drunk ass out so I can kick him.”

Yuuri considers it. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

...

Victor’s not at the bar.

 _“Are you fucking kidding me,”_ Yuri says when Yuuri comes back out alone.

Yuuri looks very tired. “Maybe he’s on his bike,” he says. “I don’t know how else he’s getting to all these places so fast.”

Yuri grips his hair in his hands and makes an ungodly noise. _“I am going to—”_ he thunders, but when he reaches for a threat that’s large enough to encompass his feelings, he comes up empty. Killing Victor is not enough. Shooting Victor into the sun is not enough. Trussing Victor up and throwing him on top of a wasp nest and selling the footage to the tabloids is not enough.

“Let’s just go home,” Yuuri says, and he starts walking without waiting for Yuri to agree or disagree. Yuri yanks his phone out and refreshes his Instagram feed, but Victor hasn’t updated again. He’s probably on his way to another bar, drinking to forget that his students are uninspired skaters and that Yuuri still won’t sleep with him.

Yuri starts trudging after Yuuri. He wasn’t having any luck figuring out _agape_ when he was in a normal mood, and he doesn’t know how the fuck he’s supposed to figure it out now that he’s furious and exhausted. He mentally runs through the words again— _selfless, unconditional, uncalculating—_ but they might as well be gibberish for all the emotion they evoke in him.

There’s a low concrete wall lining their path, and for some reason Yuuri veers over and steps up onto it. He walks along its top with light, precise steps. “What the fuck are you doing?” Yuri grumbles. He can barely lift his own heels off the ground.

“I used to do this all the time when I lived here,” Yuuri says. “To work on balance.”

“How do you have the _energy_ ,” Yuri says.

Yuuri shrugs, an annoyingly graceful lift of the shoulder. “I don’t know. Practice, I guess?”

Yuri feels a surge of anger at the nonchalance in his voice, like _practice_ isn’t something Yuri would be familiar with. It makes Yuri think of what Yuuri called him back at the ramen shop: _lacking, lazy._ His face starts to heat up. Like Yuri could’ve dominated Juniors by being _lazy._ Like Yuri could’ve outstripped his competition by huge margins out of _laziness_. Yuri glares down at the pavement. _Agape_ , he thinks, trying to distract himself. _Selfless. Unconditional. Uncalculating._

Out loud, he says, “What the fuck happened to you in Sochi?”

Yuuri’s precise steps halt.

Yuri feels a fleeting, guilty sense of satisfaction. Yuuri balances there for a second, one foot hovering in the air, and then he lowers it and steps off the wall onto the ground. The expression on his face is oddly blank. He takes out his phone and taps at the screen a few times, then holds it out for Yuri to see.

Yuri glances at it sullenly. It’s a picture of Makkachin. Yuri looks up at Yuuri, then back at the phone. “What does Makkachin have to do with Sochi?” he asks.

“Oh,” Yuuri says, pulling the screen back to look. “I guess it’s hard to tell his size when he’s by himself.” He taps at the screen again. “He’s a toy poodle. They’re a lot smaller than standard poodles like Makkachin.”

Yuuri holds out his phone again. This time it’s a picture of Yuuri holding the dog, and Yuri can see the difference now: it’s a little runt, fitting easily in Yuuri’s arms. Yuuri’s a little runt too, his smiling face still chubby with baby fat.

“Okay?” Yuri says. “What does _that_ dog have to do with Sochi?”

Yuuri pulls the phone back and looks at it. “I got him when I was a kid,” he says. “But I couldn’t take him with me when I went to train in America. I had to leave him here in Hasetsu. When I was in Sochi, my family was watching the short program in the main room, and they weren’t paying attention to him. He got outside without them noticing. And he...”

Yuuri trails off, still staring down at the picture on his phone. For a single frustrated second, Yuri doesn’t know how that sentence is supposed to end.

And then—

Oh.

Oh _shit_.

Yuuri swipes over to another picture, but this time he doesn’t bother showing it to Yuri; he just looks at it with that same remote expression on his face. Oh, _fuck_. Yuuri was on the phone with someone when Yuri found him crying in that Sochi bathroom, and since the whole conversation was in Japanese, Yuri didn’t understand a word of it. But it seemed so blindingly obvious at the time. Yuuri had just humiliated himself in front of the whole world. What else could he possibly be crying over?

Yuuri’s walking speed is unconsciously slowing as he looks down at his phone, and Yuri steps abruptly into his path, making him stop. “Why the fuck would your family _tell_ you?” Yuri demands, his voice bending somewhere between outrage and guilt. “You were in the middle of a competition!”

“They weren’t going to,” Yuuri says. “But I could tell something was wrong when I called them that night, just from the sound of their voices. I made them tell me.”

Insults spring instinctively into Yuri’s mouth— _idiot, why would you ask them to give you bad news, why would you sabotage yourself like that?_—but he swallows them down. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he says.

Yuuri glances up at him. “I didn’t see the point,” he says. “It’s not like we’re friends.”

Yuri feels himself flush. It’s not like you have to be friends with someone to say _Leave me the fuck alone, my dog just died._ Yuri was unwittingly the world’s most colossal asshole to Yuuri in Sochi, and Yuuri just accepted it, without a word. Fuck, Yuri’s been a colossal asshole to Yuuri ever since he showed up in Hasetsu, and Yuuri’s just accepted _that_ , too.

Yuuri takes a small step around Yuri and starts walking again. Yuri follows him, watching as Yuuri swipes through several more pictures on his phone. From this angle Yuri can see the screen: indistinct combinations of brown fur and smiling faces. Yuri knows exactly what it’s like to move away from home, to willingly put huge distances between himself and the people he cares about, but he was never forced to leave his cat behind. His host family in St. Petersburg almost didn’t allow her; Yuri’s grandpa said “Maybe if you ask them _very_ politely, Yurochka,” and Yuri was so sickeningly polite that part of his soul shriveled up and died. But that’s how desperate he was to keep Potya with him. He wouldn’t have survived the crushing homesickness of the first few months without her.

Eventually Yuuri turns off his phone screen, banishing the pictures to black. An uncomfortable silence stretches between them. Yuri knows he should apologize; he hates apologizing more than anything else in the world, but if ever a situation called for it, it’s this one. The seconds tick by, and Yuri tells himself to just say it, to open his mouth and get it over with.

But his mouth stays obstinately shut. What would it even do, anyway? If he says _I_ _’m sorry_ , he knows for a goddamn fact that Yuuri will say _it_ _’s okay_ , because Yuuri doesn’t stay mad the way Yuri does. He’s only seen Yuuri get mad once, when Yuri first arrived in Hasetsu and yelled at him for poaching Victor. Yuuri’s anger was like a crack of lightning: it flickered hot behind his eyes and then dissolved, as quickly as it came. Three seconds later he was all mildness again. If Yuri apologizes now, Yuuri will just forgive him, with an easiness Yuri doesn’t understand or deserve. It won’t make up for anything. What the fuck can Yuri do to actually make up for what he’s done?

He doesn’t know, and in the meantime the silence is starting to feel unbearable. He has to say something, _anything._ “What was your dog’s name?” Yuri asks abruptly, feeling idiotic.

“Vicchan.”

Yuri does a double-take. “Isn’t that what your mom calls Victor?”

It stirs a smile onto Yuuri’s face. “Yes,” he says.

When Yuuri doesn’t elaborate, Yuri says, “She calls him by a dog’s name?”

“Basically.”

“Huh,” Yuri says. “Brutal.”

Yuuri glances at him, that faint smile still on his face, and there’s just enough forgiveness in it that Yuri has to look away. Guilt is wringing his stomach. Fuck, he should just apologize, even if it doesn’t mean anything, even if it doesn’t make up for anything. He should just say it. _I_ _’m sorry, I was an asshole, I didn’t know. I’m sorry._

He doesn’t say it. The two of them continue on in silence for a while, until Yuuri’s phone chirps a notification in his hand. Yuuri looks at it. “Victor updated again,” he says. “It’s another picture of the ocean.”

He holds it out so Yuri can see. Sure enough, it’s another context-free photo of the water: dark now, reflecting the nighttime lights of Hasetsu. “I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with the stupid ocean,” Yuri says. “We have the ocean in St. Petersburg.”

“His Instagram’s been pretty touristy tonight,” Yuuri says. “Maybe he’s trying to take it all in before he goes home.”

Yuri scowls at him before he remembers he should stop acting like an asshole. He turns his scowl toward the ground instead. “I told you to stop talking like that,” he says.

“Why?” Yuuri asks, his voice light. “You seem pretty confident that you’re going to win.”

“I _am_ going to win,” Yuri says. “But it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t think _you_ _’re_ going to win.” He looks up, and before he can stop himself he gives Yuuri a little shove. “So grow some fucking confidence already.”

The shove makes Yuuri tilt a little to one side. He doesn’t get mad, of course; when he sways back, he just looks thoughtful. “You’re right,” Yuuri says. He looks at the picture on his phone again. “Victor’s probably just...out getting acquainted with his new hometown.”

He glances over at Yuri, expectant, like he’s waiting for his approval. Yuri shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders.

“Better,” he mutters.

...

Victor’s not at the onsen when they get back.

Neither of them expected him to be, but they stick their heads into his room as a formality and find it empty. Yuri goes over to the bed and knocks the rest of Victor’s pillows onto the floor. He does it with his hands and without much fanfare; he’s too tired to kick and rage.

Yuuri takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. “Did you want to take a bath?” he asks. “I know it’s pretty late, but we’ve been running around all day.”

On the one hand, Yuri is so exhausted that he might fall asleep in the water and drown. On the other hand, it’ll be the fifth time he sees Yuuri’s dick this week. Not that he’s counting. “Yeah, sure,” Yuri says. “I still have a neck-ache from that fucking waterfall.”

Yuuri makes a detour to his bedroom, which gives Yuri the opportunity to go downstairs, wash up fast, and get in the water first. He’s been doing it that way all week. Originally it was because he didn’t want anyone to see him naked, although he stopped caring about _that_ the first time he went into the men’s showers and saw half of Hasetsu’s male population wandering around, dicks swinging. Now he gets in first because...

Fuck, there’s no point in lying to himself. He gets in first because he wants to see Yuuri get in second.

Yuri steps gingerly into the steaming water and sinks down. When he’s submerged up to his ears, the tension in his neck starts to melt away, and he leans back against the rock ledge and closes his eyes. It feels amazing. It feels so good that he wonders if there’s a little piece of _agape_ somewhere inside of it. Maybe God’s divine love put Yuri in this onsen specifically to take away the headache He gave him earlier at the waterfall.

Except that wouldn’t be _uncalculating. Uncalculating_ is the worst of the words on Victor’s list, because Yuri can’t think of a single thing in his life that isn’t calculated. For fuck’s sake, he’s skating _On Love: Agape_ for a score. For _points_. The whole stupid scenario is rotten from the roots up.

He hears a shifting noise, and he opens his eyes just in time to see Yuuri open the sliding door and come outside. All thoughts of _agape_ instantly vanish from his head. The shape of Yuuri’s body is hazy through the steam coming off the water; Yuri can make out the silhouetted curve of his ass and the faint roundedness of his bicep as he slides the door shut. Yuuri’s arms don’t look like anything special when he wears long sleeves, but Yuri has nine pictures of him hanging off a stripper pole that prove otherwise. He watches as Yuuri makes his way carefully over to the edge of the water, his footfalls on the hard rock jostling the tiny bit of fat still clinging to his stomach. Yuri’s always been bony and thin; he thinks about pressing the flat of his hand against Yuuri’s midsection and wonders what it would feel like.

Yuuri steps down into the water, and Yuri tries not to look directly at his dick. He fails. The good thing about being in a hot spring is that he can pretend he’s red in the face because of the heat, and not because his brain has suddenly zeroed in on Yuuri’s dick and how goddamn fucking _nice_ it is. Ugh, _nice_ is the stupidest word to apply to someone’s dick, but it pops into Yuri’s head every time he sees it. It’s not weirdly short or weirdly long or weirdly shaped. It fits Yuuri. It’s just... _nice._

Yuuri’s hips sink beneath the water, and Yuri quickly flicks his eyes away, focusing on the frog statue sitting in the middle of the water. Yuuri submerges himself up to his shoulders and sits down near Yuri, leaning back against the rock ledge with a sigh. “It’s been a really long day,” he says, clear relief in his voice.

“And look what we have to show for it,” Yuri says flatly.

“We got a workout, at least.”

Yuri scowls instinctively; he’s not in the mood for any _glass half full_ bullshit. He swivels around, hooks his folded arms over the rock ledge, and lays his head on top of them. It’s a terrible idea. The second his neck isn’t holding his head up anymore, sleep starts to tug at his eyelids. God, he fucking _knew_ if they didn’t find Victor, he’d end up falling asleep without having figured out _agape_.

“It’s so quiet,” Yuuri says musingly. “It’s kind of weird not having Victor here. He always talks up a storm.”

Yuri lifts his head up. Well, maybe there’s one thing that’s _glass half full_ about tonight: Victor’s off getting drunk with strangers instead of sitting here looking at Yuuri at his most _eros_. Yuuri’s damp hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his long arms are stretched out along the rock ledge, and his skin is flushed pink from the heat. There are little glistening droplets beading on the ridge of his collarbones, either water or sweat, and for a second Yuri imagines just leaning over and licking them right off Yuuri’s skin.

Yuri drops his head back down onto his arms with a thud. _Fuck._ He couldn’t be farther away from _agape_ if he tried. That’s the most infuriating thing about Yuuri: he can channel _eros_ just fucking _fine_ as long as he’s not thinking about it. He channeled it in front of a billion ISU officials at the Sochi banquet thanks to being smashed out of his mind. “Why don’t you just drink eight bottles of champagne before you skate?” Yuri suggested rudely, the first time Yuuri admitted to having trouble with his program. Yuuri didn’t get mad—of course—but Victor gave Yuri a look so sweetly murderous it was like being drowned in syrup. “Don’t throw the banquet in his face,” Victor told him later, after Yuuri went to bed. “He’s obviously embarrassed about it.”

“He should be,” Yuri said unrepentantly. “He acted like a complete idiot.”

“You didn’t exactly cover yourself in glory, either,” Victor said. “But I don’t see him taunting you for losing that dance battle.”

Yuri’s temper flared. “At least I kept my pants on.”

“Maybe you should’ve taken them off!” Victor said. _“Something_ was certainly holding you back from winning.”

Yuri’s response at the time was to kick over one of Victor’s lamps and go into his room with a slam of the door, but now, in retrospect, he kind of understands Victor’s point. The Yuuri who wrapped himself confidently around a stripper pole in Sochi isn’t the same Yuuri they’re living with here in Hasetsu. Just telling Yuuri to recreate the night of the banquet won’t do anything; he needs to somehow tap into that feeling while he’s sober.

Yuri bites down on his inner arm. It’s not like it’s _Yuri_ _’s_ problem that Yuuri can’t figure this shit out. Yuri has his own bullshit program to worry about. It’s _better_ if Yuuri struggles, as a matter of fact, because it makes Yuri’s chances of winning that much more likely.

But it was a lot easier to feel combative toward Yuuri when he didn’t know what an asshole he was to him in Sochi.

He hears rustling in the water and looks up again. Yuuri is running wet fingers backwards through his hair, trying to plaster down the short tendrils that keep escaping near his hairline. He looks so different with his hair back: the angles of his face are more pronounced, striking. “You should—” Yuri says, then cuts himself short.

Yuuri looks at him curiously. “What?”

Ah, fuck. He wasn’t even thinking—words just started coming out of his mouth. “You should do your hair like that for the competition,” Yuri says, trying to sound brusque and disinterested. “It makes you look like less of a nerd.”

Yuuri raises both eyebrows. “Oh.” He looks down at his reflection on the surface of the water. “Okay?”

Yuri feels a surge of annoyance. He shoves a wave of water at Yuuri, dissolving his reflection into ripples. “For fuck’s sake, why don’t you ever get _mad?_ _”_ he demands. “I’m being _mean_ to you.”

“That sounded like a compliment, though.”

“Ugh,” Yuri says, because it’s true. “Seriously, when Victor blows us off to go drinking, doesn’t it make you mad? When I talk shit about you, doesn’t it piss you off?”

Yuuri shrugs. “I don’t think getting mad about it would do anything. You’re both just...being yourselves.”

So Yuuri thinks being an asshole is a cornerstone of Yuri’s personality. Not that he’s wrong _,_ but— “This is why you don’t have any confidence,” Yuri says. “You have to be able to tell people to _fuck off,_ sometimes. You can’t just sit there and take it. You have to get _mad_.”

Yuuri raises his hands helplessly. “I don’t know why you think I never get mad. I get mad all the time.”

Yuri scoffs. “Like when?”

“Like today. During practice.”

Yuri thinks back. Yuuri was struggling with his quad Salchow all morning; he fell on the landing four times before Victor made him take a break, and Yuuri got that same tight look on his face he had after his free skate in Sochi. “Being mad at _yourself_ doesn’t count,” Yuri says. “That’s not even being mad, that’s being _frustrated._ They’re not the same thing.”

“Aren’t they?”

“ _No,_ you fucking amateur,” Yuri says.

For some reason that makes Yuuri laugh. It catches Yuri off-guard. “What?” Yuri demands.

“It’s just kind of funny,” Yuuri says. “Victor wanted us to figure out _agape_ , and we’re sitting here arguing over all the different ways there are to be angry.”

Yuri deflates a little. “Fucking Victor,” he mutters. “This is exactly the kind of shit he wanted when he assigned it this way. ‘Oh, I gave _agape_ to an asshole and _eros_ to a virgin. Where’s my medal for genius in coaching?’”

A faint crease appears between Yuuri’s brows. “I’m not a—”

Then a look of startled mortification pops onto his face. He snaps his mouth shut and looks away from Yuri. “Wait,” Yuri says, disbelieving. “Are you _serious?_ _”_

Yuuri has suddenly become extremely interested in the frog statue sitting in the middle of the water. “Then why the fuck is this so _hard_ for you?” Yuri practically shouts. “If you’ve _done it_ , just go out there and _think about it_ while you skate!”

“It—” Yuuri sounds about ten seconds away from self-immolation. “It wasn’t—seductive, or romantic, or anything. It wouldn’t fit the story I see in the song.”

Yuri stops short. “What story?”

“The story. The narrative.” Yuuri risks a glance over at him. “Haven’t you heard me talking about it with Victor?”

This is the first Yuri’s heard of there being a story inside _Eros_. Oh fuck, did that mean Victor put some hidden story in _Agape_ that Yuri is supposed to guess? “I barely pay attention to Victor when he’s talking to _me_ ,” Yuri says. “What kind of story is it?”

“It’s just something I imagined when I watched him perform it the first time,” Yuuri says. “And Victor says it’s kind of like what he was thinking when he choreographed it.”

“Shit,” Yuri says. “Tell it to me.”

Yuuri gives him an odd look. “Why?”

“Because if _yours_ has a story, then maybe _mine_ is supposed to have a story, and I have no fucking clue where to even start!”

So Yuuri sketches it out for him: the story of a playboy, who seduces the most beautiful woman in town and tosses her away as soon as he gets what he wants. “You’re supposed to be the playboy?” Yuri asks.

“Yeah.”

No wonder Yuuri’s been struggling. He doesn’t even have the confidence to tell Yuri to fuck off when Yuri’s being an unforgivable jackass. How is he supposed to pretend to be someone with so much confidence that it bleeds over into cruelty? “And you’re, like, attached to this story?” Yuri asks. “You couldn’t just change it to something else?”

Yuuri sighs. “The story fits the song. _I’m_ what doesn’t fit.”

For a second Yuri’s tempted to say _forget it_ —the competition’s in two days, and there’s no time for Yuuri to shoehorn himself into a role he doesn’t know how to play. But Yuri can’t say it with a clear conscience. There’s a big empty gap in Yuri’s head where _agape_ is supposed to be, and he knows he’s going to keep poking at it right up until he steps out in front of the crowd to skate. “Let me listen to the song,” Yuri says. “Maybe you’re too close to it. Maybe there’s something I’ll hear that you’re not hearing.”

The look Yuuri gives him is almost wary. “Look,” Yuri says, exasperated, “I’m not _actually_ an asshole 24 hours a day. We spent two hours on my thing, we can spend ten minutes on yours.”

Yuuri’s look switches to surprise. “Well, okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”

Yuri makes a move to stand up. “Oh, right now?” Yuuri asks.

“The competition’s not getting _farther away_ , is it?”

So Yuuri stands up too. The water recedes to his waist and stubbornly refuses to go any lower. “Did you want me to get out first?” Yuuri asks. He says it very politely, without the slightest hint that he’s asking because he thinks Yuri’s shy.

Let him think whatever the fuck he wants to think. “Yes,” Yuri says, and hangs back to watch him go.

...

Ten minutes later they reconvene on Victor’s pillowless bed. Yuri has changed into a set of the onsen’s robes, but Yuuri’s in a t-shirt and track pants. Water dimples the light blue fabric of his shirt in the spots he missed while toweling off. “Okay,” Yuuri says, tapping at his phone. “Should I just...?”

“Yeah.”

The rumbling guitar intro of _On Love: Eros_ fills the air. Yuri stares at a spot on the wall across the room and tries to picture the choreography in his head. Not the way Yuuri’s been doing it, because apparently that’s wrong, but the way Victor did it the first time. Body held at a slant; one hip cocked; arms moving with confident enticement. In the moment between the intro and the start of the song, Victor tossed them all a glance—confident, sultry, fake as hell—and it made Yuuko completely lose her shit. Victor’s a pro at that kind of look, but Yuri can’t imagine Yuuri pulling it off at all. _He feels so deeply_ , Georgi said before, but what he really should’ve said is _he can_ _’t fake it._ The audience is going to get real emotion out of Yuuri whether they want it or not, and right now that emotion is 75% meek uncertainty. It doesn’t exactly mesh with a story about an asshole who lands the hottest woman in town and then immediately dumps her.

And Yuuri’s right: the story fits the song. Yuuri makes absent motions with his hands as they listen, choreography in miniature, and in it Yuri can see the way the playboy preens and struts and chases his prey. All of Yuuri’s jumps are in the second half—he marks them with little darts and swirls of his finger—and they feel like the playboy is showing off. _Look at this flawless quad Salchow,_ he’s saying, _of course you'd want to fuck me, right?_

Then the song ends with an elegant, stylized shove as he casts away his conquest and moves on without her. Yuuri presses pause on his phone and looks at Yuri. “So?” he asks.

Yuri exhales. “I mean, yeah, the story fits the choreography,” he says. “But the song’s called _On Love_ , right? What the fuck does any of that have to do with love? The playboy’s just an asshole. He’s getting off on the power he has over the woman.”

“Well,” Yuuri says slowly, “it’s the woman who falls in love with him. She knows she shouldn’t, but she can’t help herself.”

“It seems dumb to make a song about love all focused on the person who’s not in love,” Yuri says. “The story should be about _her_. You could pull off a woman more than a playboy.”

Yuuri gives him a dry look. “I’m not even saying that to be mean,” Yuri says. “The playboy’s nothing like you. You’re not an asshole. But the woman’s, like, a tragic figure. You could pull that off.”

“None of the choreography fits her, though,” Yuuri says. “It’s all about being the pursuer.” He sighs. “And Victor wants me to move outside of my comfort zone. If I switched characters, he’d just say I was taking the easy way out.”

Yuri makes a frustrated noise. He’s right: stupid Victor wants to see Yuuri play a seductive asshole, just like he wants to see Yuri play some dewy-eyed angel. “I wish we could just fucking switch _programs_ ,” Yuri says. “I could do asshole playboy in my sleep. _”_

Yuuri’s eyes flick over to him for a second, then flick away. It’s brief, but it speaks volumes. “What?” Yuri says. “You don’t think I can?”

“I think you could perform it with the confidence Victor wants,” Yuuri says.

Yuri knows that’s just another way of saying _no_. “The whole story’s about how cruel he is,” Yuri says. “You don’t think I can pull off _cruelty?_ _”_

“No, I know you can,” Yuuri says. “I just don’t think you can pull off _playboy_.”

Yuri feels a low burn starting up in his stomach. It’s not anger exactly, but it’s something close to it. He always feels it when someone tells him _you can_ _’t;_ it’s the acid embodiment of _yes I can_. He leans in toward Yuuri, putting their faces just close enough to be uncomfortable. “How the fuck would you know?” Yuri says.

Yuuri, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. “You’ve never shown anything like it in your other programs.”

Yuri huffs. He’s close enough that it briefly flutters the flyaway hairs on Yuuri’s forehead. “I’ve never had a program where _I_ _’ve_ had the final say,” he says. He leans in a little closer. “You think I’d be skating to all that classical music bullshit if my coach wasn’t making me?”

Yuuri just raises his eyebrows and doesn’t say anything. Sometimes he picks the weirdest moments to start standing his ground. Yuri’s close enough to bite him, and Yuuri’s just looking back at him with total nonchalance, like he thinks Yuri won’t do it.

Well, fuck _that._

Yuri leans in and grabs Yuuri’s lower lip between his teeth. It’s not quite a bite, not quite a kiss, but it scrapes the most satisfying noise of surprise out of Yuuri, a startled exhalation that Yuri can literally feel against his teeth. Yuuri’s lips close over Yuri’s for a confused moment, and then he instinctively jerks away. Yuri lets him go, and Yuuri lurches backwards on the bed. _“Yurio,”_ he says, flustered.

“What?” Yuri says, a little smug. He leans in again, and _now_ Yuuri leans away from him, his upper body pitched back at an awkward angle. “Nothing _eros_ about that, right?”

“You—” Yuuri begins, but then his balance starts to wobble. Yuri can’t help himself: he puts his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders and pushes him down. Yuuri’s back hits the bed with a thump, and quick as anything Yuri throws one leg over his prone form, straddling him, his knees tucked tight against Yuuri’s hips.

Yuuri’s eyes are wide. Yuri sets his hands down flat on the sheets near Yuuri’s head and hovers there for a long moment, drinking in the surprise in Yuuri’s eyes, the unconscious parting of his lips. “What do _I_ know about _eros_ , right?” Yuri says.

Yuuri’s pulse is faintly visible on the side of his neck. Yuri realizes dimly that his own pulse is jackhammering; for all his bravado, he’s never had someone laid out underneath him like this before. He takes in the damp sprawl of Yuuri’s black hair against the bedspread, the pink flush on his face, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. He’s so close that if Yuri leans down a little, he could—

He could—

“Okay,” Yuuri says. He lifts his hands and presses them flat against Yuri’s chest. “I get it. Okay? You can stop.”

Right. He _should_ stop. He doesn’t exactly have an exit strategy here, and Yuuri’s offering him one. If Yuri pulls back, and smirks, and says something rude, Yuuri will probably just accept this as another competitive _thing_ between them. Yuuri already knows that being an over-competitive asshole is part of who Yuri is.

Except—

Yuri lets his weight push down against Yuuri’s hands. He feels the tips of Yuuri’s fingers curl and press into his chest. “Who says I want to stop?” Yuri asks, his voice low.

Yuuri blinks up at him. “What?”

“I told you,” Yuri says, “we spent two hours on my thing. We can spend some time on yours.”

Yuuri just stares at him, a bewildered crease forming on his brow. Yuri lets his weight push down a little more against the hands on his chest. “You don’t even _like_ me,” Yuuri says finally.

“Who says I don’t like you?”

The crease on Yuuri’s brow deepens. _“You,”_ he says, a hint of incredulity in his voice. “All the time.” Then, quieter: “I thought.”

“Well,” Yuri says, a little gruffly. “Shows what you fuckin’ know.”

The hands pressed against Yuri’s chest have gone lax, whether from surprise or inattention, and when Yuri pushes down again he feels them give, without resistance. Yuuri’s hands fall back on the bed, and from there it’s just momentum, to fall onto his forearms and press his chest against Yuuri’s and kiss his soft, shocked mouth.

Yuuri doesn’t kiss him back. His lips are pliable but motionless, his body tense. Yuri tilts his head and kisses him again, and this time Yuuri’s lips part underneath the pressure of it, but they fall shut as soon as he stops.

A flicker of unease cuts through the breathless static in Yuri’s head. Yuri hasn’t kissed that many people before, but the ones he _did_ kiss were always into it. It only ever happened at competitions: hungrily pressed up against someone in a hidden corner, acutely aware that Yakov would come looking for him if he was gone too long. Yuri’s never actually done _this_ before: kissed someone in the calm isolation of a bedroom, with everything so quiet that he can hear the faint wetness of their mouths and the reproving voice of his conscience in his head. _He doesn_ _’t want it,_ that voice is saying, and Yuri ignores it, pushes forward and kisses Yuuri _again_ , presses his tongue against the weakly closed line of Yuuri’s lips and tries to push inside.

Yuuri’s hands lift up and cup Yuri’s face, firmly. He pulls their mouths apart. Yuri’s eyes open involuntarily and he sees that crease on Yuuri’s brow again: serious now, not at all confused. Yuri lets his head hang down and squeezes his eyes shut, panting. Shit. _Shit_. He shouldn’t have pushed it. He should’ve taken the graceful exit Yuuri offered him in the first place. Now there’s no exit except through Yuuri’s explicit rejection, and even if he’s nice about it—which he probably fucking _will be_ —it’s still going to be the first thing he thinks about when he sees Yuri now. There are two more days until the competition, and every time Yuuri looks at him he’ll remember this moment when Yuri threw himself at him with unearned confidence.

“Yurio,” Yuuri says, his voice low. His hands tilt Yuri’s head up a little, like he wants Yuri to look at him. Yuri keeps his eyes closed, even though he knows how stupid it must look. _“Yurio.”_

Yuri braces himself, muscles tensing, jaw clenched. He opens his eyes and looks at Yuuri.

There’s no anger in his expression—of course. But what Yuri sees there isn’t exactly forgiveness, either. Yuuri’s face is flushed and his hair is mussed, and the look he’s giving Yuri is so serious and assessing that it’s uncomfortable. It’s like he’s trying to stare through the dark of Yuri’s pupils and straight into his thoughts. His firm hold on Yuri’s face loosens once Yuri looks at him, and one of his hands slips back a little. The tips of his fingers settle into Yuri’s damp hair.

“Slow down,” Yuuri says.

Yuri’s breath catches in his throat. _Slow down_ is not an explicit rejection. Yuuri’s fingertips move deeper into the thick hair right above the nape of Yuri’s neck, and it makes Yuri’s skin prickle, everywhere. “You—” Yuuri hesitates. “You can’t just go straight from hating me to kissing me.”

“I don’t _hate_ you,” Yuri says, more sullenly than he means to.

Yuuri gives him a faintly skeptical look. “Really?” he says. His fingers pull back a little, and then they push forward into Yuri’s hair again, deliberately. A shivering thrill runs down Yuri’s spine. “You’re always yelling at me.”

“So? I’m always yelling at _everyone._ _”_

That makes Yuuri smile. And somehow there’s fondness in it, and forgiveness, and it makes the simmering guilt in Yuri’s stomach suddenly roar into a boil. Honestly, why the fuck would Yuuri want Yuri to kiss him when Yuri hasn’t even apologized for being such a jackass in Sochi? Why the fuck is Yuuri being so _nice_ to him, his fingers moving through Yuri’s hair like that, when up until thirty seconds ago he thought Yuri hated his guts?

Yuri has to just come out and say it. _I_ _’m sorry_. It’s two fucking words. “I’m s—” Yuri tries, but the end of the word gets stuck in his throat like a sliver of popcorn kernel. Fuck, why is it so _hard?_ It was a hundred times easier to lean down and kiss Yuuri than it is to force the words out now. “I’m sorry.”

He can tell Yuuri wasn’t expecting to hear it: his eyebrows lift with surprise. “It’s okay,” he says.

“No, it’s not,” Yuri manages to grit out. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you in Sochi. I didn’t know about your dog. I thought you were crying because you lost.”

“I mean,” Yuuri says, “I _was_ crying because I lost.”

“Yeah, but—” Now he’s somehow in the weird position of defending Yuuri from himself. “You wouldn’t have skated that bad if it hadn’t happened.”

For a second Yuuri looks like he’s about to disagree with that, too. But then he just exhales. “No, probably not,” he says.

“And I didn’t—” Fuck, this next part is embarrassing. “I didn’t tell you to retire because I actually _wanted_ you to retire,” Yuri says. “I wanted you to get _mad_. I wanted you to get so mad that you’d go to the next competition and skate a million times better, just to prove me wrong.”

And the look of faint surprise on Yuuri’s face is confirmation that he didn’t know that’s what Yuri meant. This whole time, Yuuri’s been thinking that Yuri really wants him gone. Which is the exact fucking opposite of what Yuri wants, and the embarrassment of admitting it suddenly seems less important than making sure Yuuri knows. “I don’t care about any of those other assholes,” Yuri says fiercely. “Chris, or JJ, or whoever. I want to skate against _you._ I want to see you skate the cleanest fucking program of your career, and then I want to _beat it._ _”_

Yuuri’s faint surprise has become full surprise. His fingers in Yuri’s hair stop moving, and he doesn’t say anything for so long that Yuri’s face starts to burn. “Why?” Yuuri says at last. “Why me, and not one of them?”

“Because—” Yuri’s never tried to put it into words before. “Because they’re _boring._ It’s the same old bullshit, every time they skate. But you—you’re a fucking disaster sometimes, but you’re not boring.”

And for some reason, Yuuri starts to smile again. “Ugh, why are you _smiling?”_ Yuri demands. “I’m being _mean_ to you.”

“I think this is the nicest you’ve ever been to me,” Yuuri says. “It’s kind of weird. I’m more used to you calling me names.”

“Idiot,” Yuri says, instinctively, and he’s rewarded with another stroke of Yuuri’s fingers through his hair. It’s starting to drive Yuri crazy, that fond, barely-there touch. Yuri lowers his head, and he feels Yuuri’s hands move with him, one in his hair, the other still lightly cupping Yuri’s cheek. “I can make it up to you,” Yuri says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels. “With _eros._ I can help you figure it out.”

And even though Yuuri isn’t pushing him away, a doubt appears in his eyes that fills Yuri with an almost unbearable agitation. “I don’t know if that’s a good—” Yuuri says.

Yuri can’t stand where the end of that sentence is going, so he pushes his face forward to stop it, planting a Hail Mary of a kiss on Yuuri’s mouth to smother the last word. Their lips clash awkwardly, messily, and Yuri feels a stab of disappointment at how _shitty_ it is, when it’s probably the last kiss they’ll ever have together. He feels Yuuri’s fingers tighten on his head again, and he waits for Yuuri’s protest to vibrate his mouth, for Yuuri’s hands to push him away.

But his hands don’t push. They hold Yuri in place for a moment—and then Yuuri sighs, a rush of warm air against Yuri’s mouth. “Okay,” he says, right against Yuri’s lips. “Okay. Just—”

Yuuri’s hands tilt Yuri’s head to a new angle, and just like that, their jumbled lips slide flush. Suddenly he and Yuuri _fit_ together, like puzzle pieces interlocking. It startles Yuri enough that he doesn’t react for a second, and in that stillness he feels a soft pull against his lips, so vivid and unexpected that Yuri’s heart rate doubles.

Yuuri’s _kissing him._

It’s like a lightning bolt to Yuri’s nervous system. He drags a ragged breath in through his nose and starts kissing Yuuri back, nowhere near as softly, and Yuuri doesn’t pull away like Yuri half-expects. He matches Yuri’s energy, the fierce drag and pressure of Yuri’s lips. Somehow their shitty last kiss has turned into their first _real_ one, and it’s so unbelievable that Yuri’s mind starts to go fuzzy. He feels Yuuri’s fingers tangling deeper into his hair, drawing Yuri’s face even closer, and Yuri almost forgets to breathe as their lips clasp together again, and _again_ , until Yuri’s mouth is moving with a ferocity that borders on starving. And then he can’t wait any longer: on the next kiss he lets his tongue dip into Yuuri’s mouth, and a shudder barrels down his spine at the feel of it, slick and hot and _intimate,_ more intimate than anything else they could be doing, except—

Yuuri’s hands tighten on Yuri’s head, and he pushes Yuri up, separating their mouths. Disappointment punches through Yuri so hard it almost knocks the wind out of him. Why was _that_ what made him stop?

“It’s—” Yuuri’s voice is breathless. “It’s supposed to be the other way around, right? I’m supposed to be the one chasing you.”

Oh, right. Fucking _eros._ All this kissing is supposed to be _educational_. “So fucking chase me already,” Yuri says, his voice rough.

For a second Yuuri just looks up at him, his dark hair a messy sprawl on the bedspread, his face flushed. Then he moves his hands to Yuri’s shoulders and pushes him: not up, but _sideways_ , rolling Yuri over onto the bed with a force Yuri wasn’t expecting. Suddenly their positions are reversed: Yuri’s lying on his back, hair sprawled on the bedspread, and Yuuri’s hovering above him, the bracket of his knees snug against Yuri’s thighs.

And thank fuck the onsen’s robes are loosely fitting, because Yuri’s dick full-on twitches underneath the fabric. Yuri’s never been _handled_ like that before, overpowered in a split-second by someone else. He can’t tell if he likes it or not. But he likes that Yuuri leans down immediately and kisses him again, his damp hair brushing against Yuri’s forehead. It’s a softer kiss than Yuri wants, and he reaches up and takes Yuuri’s face in his hands, trying to pull him closer. Yuuri settles his elbows down on the bed for balance, and then in one smooth motion he tugs Yuri’s hands off his face and pushes them down onto the bedspread. The next kiss he presses to Yuri’s lips is even softer than the one before it, and when Yuri lifts his head up to make it harder, Yuuri lifts his head up too, denying him. “Come _on_ ,” Yuri says.

“How am I supposed to chase you if you won’t stop chasing me?” Yuuri asks.

It’s a fair point, but that doesn’t make Yuri hate it any less. He drops his head back down onto the bed with a scowl and waits for Yuuri’s next move. Yuuri leans down again and puts his face close to Yuri’s, and Yuri closes his eyes automatically, ready for the next too-soft meeting of their lips.

It doesn’t come. The warm tickle of Yuuri’s breath hovers over Yuri’s lips, not touching. Fuck, the asshole is _toying_ with him. Yuri opens his mouth to complain, and Yuuri drops a whisper of a kiss onto his lower lip, with just enough pressure to shut him up. Then Yuuri’s mouth moves sideways, brushing against the far corner of Yuri’s lips, and then it keeps going, in entirely the wrong direction: drifting softly against Yuri’s cheek, his jaw, his—

A full-body shiver goes through Yuri as Yuuri’s lips close lightly over the tip of his earlobe. Fuck, maybe it wasn’t the wrong direction after all. No one’s ever kissed him there before, and it’s another one of those barely-there touches that sends wild electrical signals all through Yuri’s body, like he’s full of pent-up sparks. Yuuri’s lips move over to graze against Yuri’s neck, and it’s even worse, so ticklish and electric that Yuri’s frustration starts to boil over. Yuuri’s supposed to be acting like the _playboy._ All this teasing doesn’t fit the character at all. It’s not aggressive enough: his mouth should be bruising Yuri’s neck, dominating his mouth. Why is he being so goddamn _delicate?_

And then it happens.

Yuri’s stupid, cockblocking brain figures out the perfect answer to the problem of _eros._

“Oh, fuck,” Yuri says.

Yuuri’s mouth, still light on Yuri’s neck, makes a slight questioning rumble against his skin. Oh, _fuck_. Why did he say that out loud? Even if he did figure out the answer to _eros_ , he doesn’t want Yuuri to _stop_. Once this...brainstorming session...is over, everything’s going to go back to normal, and the two of them kissing doesn’t fall under the umbrella of _normal_ at all. If they stop now, Yuri will probably never get the chance to kiss Yuuri again.

But it’s too late to pretend like he didn’t say anything. Yuuri’s mouth lifts up off his skin, and when he looks down at Yuri, his face is concerned, like he thinks something’s wrong. “Are you okay?” Yuuri asks.

Yuri can’t come up with a lie quick enough. “Ugh,” he says finally, hating everything. “I just figured out your stupid program for you.”

Yuuri’s eyebrows lift. “Really?”

Then Yuri’s brain offers him one last-ditch surge of inspiration. “But I’m not going to tell you what it is,” Yuri says, “unless you kiss me for _real_. No fucking around, for _real_.”

For a second Yuuri just looks at him, an unreadable expression on his face. Maybe the sudden swerve to extortion accidentally killed the moment. But then Yuuri shifts, moving up a little on the bed, and he leans down and kisses Yuri again. It’s a simple kiss, firm and not teasing.

And then he slides his tongue into Yuri’s mouth. Yuri’s nervous system stutters, and then it goes _haywire—_ it’s like a firecracker is going off inside him. His mind goes fuzzy and his dick twitches and his hands grab Yuuri’s face on pure animal instinct, kissing him back, wild and hungry and thoughtless. And when their tongues press together it’s better than half the gold medals Yuri won last season, and it feels like just as much of an accomplishment. It may be the last kiss they ever have together, but it’s the best one Yuri’s ever had, and Yuuri’s giving it to _him_ , not Victor. No matter what happens at the competition two days from now, Yuri will at least take the memory of _that_ back to Russia with him.

Yuri wants the kiss to go on forever. But he’s still not great at knowing how to kiss and breathe at the same time, and eventually he has to break away and suck in a lungful of air. Above him, Yuuri is inhaling deeply too, like he was having the same problem, and for a hopeful second Yuri thinks maybe they can both catch their breath and keep going. But then Yuuri gets up, lifting off of Yuri and moving over on the bed, and with a surge of disappointment Yuri makes himself sit up, too.

Being upright feels weird now. Yuri’s head is dizzy enough from all the kissing that the room seems like it’s tilting in his peripheral vision, and he braces his arm against the bed to hold himself steady. Next to him, Yuuri is settling down cross-legged in the middle of Victor’s bed, pushing his mussed hair out of his eyes. His mouth is noticeably redder than it was before. There’s something weirdly satisfying about that—knowing that _Yuri_ made that happen. “You really think you’ve figured out my program?” Yuuri asks.

“Yeah,” Yuri says. The answer seems obvious to him now. There wasn’t anything meek or uncertain about the way Yuuri was kissing him before—all that teasing and toying may have pissed Yuri off, but there’s no question that Yuuri was doing it on purpose. Yuuri was being confident, but it wasn’t the masculine, aggressive confidence of the playboy. It was indirect, and delicate, and _goading._ It drove Yuri so crazy that he kept trying to chase after Yuuri himself, like a stupid fish trying to bite down on a hook.

“All that shit you were doing wasn’t like the playboy at all,” Yuri says. “The playboy's supposed to go after the woman, and the woman's supposed to resist him. But you knew I wanted to chase you, so you kept messing with me and then pulling away. It was annoying as fuck. But you felt confident doing it that way, right?"

Yuuri's brow furrows. He nods.

“It’s like we got the characters and the roles mixed up,” Yuri says. “I was being the playboy, and you were being the woman. But _you_ were still the one in charge. Like the woman was turning the tables on the playboy and going after _him_ instead.”

Yuri sees the dawning realization on Yuuri’s face. “You’re right,” he says. “I was taking the lead, but with a different kind of energy. And I _did_ feel more comfortable doing it that way.”

“I fucking told you that you could do a woman better than a playboy,” Yuri says.

“Well, I thought playing the woman meant I'd have to re-do the entire program,” Yuuri says. “But I could keep the plot and the choreography the same, and just...change the mood of the pursuit. All the same actions, but with a more feminine approach.”

“Yeah.”

Yuuri’s expression lightens. “I wonder if Minako could—” He leans over and picks up his phone from the edge of the bed. “Oh, it’s too late to ask her tonight. But I bet she could help me figure out how to change some of my movements to fit the woman’s character better.”

For a long moment, Yuuri is so caught up in the idea that it’s like he’s a million miles away. But then he snaps out of it and looks over at Yuri with surprise and admiration. “That’s a really good idea, Yurio,” Yuuri says.

And for half a second, Yuri feels genuinely proud. For figuring it out; for the admiration in Yuuri’s eyes; for the kissed-red evidence of what they just did, glowing on Yuuri’s mouth.

And then:

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Yuri groans, flopping onto his back on the bed. “I figured out _your_ fucking thing before I figured out _my_ fucking thing. You’re so far ahead of me now, you _asshole_.”

He sends a sideways kick towards Yuuri’s leg. He’s tired and the angle’s bad, and it barely impacts. “Sorry,” Yuuri says, and leans out of Yuri's field of vision for a moment. When he leans back in, he's holding out one of Victor's pillows, like a peace offering. "I really appreciate it, though."

Yuri jams the pillow underneath his head with a scowl. Yuuri leans away and picks up another pillow from the floor, then sets it down next to Yuri's and lies down, too. "Maybe..." Yuuri ventures. "Maybe there's another way of looking at _agape_ that you're not seeing. You helped me with my problem, right? Isn't helping someone part of _agape?"_

Yuri moodily considers it. But no—what Yuri did wasn't _selfless_ or _uncalculating._ He only helped Yuuri because he felt guilty about what happened in Sochi, and because he wanted Yuuri to kiss him back. “Even it is, how am I supposed to skate to it?” Yuri says. “I don’t have a story, or a character, or any of that shit. I have nothing.”

“Didn’t Victor give you some words to think about?”

Ugh. Like those stupid words have done anything but give him a headache, all day long. “They’re pointless,” Yuri says.

“Tell them to me,” Yuuri says. “Maybe I’ll hear something in them that you haven’t.”

Yuri tips his head to the side. Yuuri's face looks earnest and open as he lies there with Victor’s pillow under his head, close enough that Yuri could touch him. It feels so weird to be lying down next Yuuri now, talking about _agape,_ when only a few minutes ago they were lying on top of each other and kissing. If only there were some part of _agape_ that more kissing would solve.

Instead, Yuri repeats the list of words that he’s already gone over a billion times today. “Agape,” he says. “Selfless, unconditional, uncalculating. God’s infinite fucking love. _”_

Yuuri laughs. “Do you believe in a God?”

Yuri’s grandmother did, before she passed away, but Yuri never took it very seriously. God always felt like a character in a story she was telling, not a real being sitting up there in the sky. “I don’t know,” Yuri says.

Yuuri’s quiet for a little while. “Victor’s been focusing a lot on God and spirituality when he talks about _agape,_ _”_ Yuuri says. “But if that kind of love doesn’t mean anything to you, maybe you need to find another way into it. What do you love?”

Yuri gives him a sidelong look. “What kind of love do you mean?”

“Any kind. Just in general.”

Yuri makes a mild, grossed-out noise at how sappy this whole line of thought is. But he thinks about it. “I love my cat,” he says.

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a cat,” Yuuri says. “I mean, I probably should’ve guessed, but—”

“Are you fucking serious?” Yuri demands. He lifts his head off the pillow and locates his cell phone, sitting on the edge of the bed near Yuuri’s legs. “Hand me my phone.”

Yuuri levers himself up for a moment to grab it, then passes it over. Yuri has so many pictures of Potya that he doesn’t know where to start, so he just scrolls through the more recent ones until he finds one of her looking especially regal and fluffy. He holds it up to Yuuri’s eyes. “Her name’s Potya.”

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” Yuuri says, his voice appropriately reverent. “How long have you had her?”

“Eight years,” Yuri says. He looks through his gallery and finds a good one of her stretching her paws over her head while she sleeps. He shows it to Yuuri. “I got her when she was just a kitten. She used to be really active, but she’s lazy now that she’s older.”

“Vicchan was that way, too,” Yuuri says.

Yuri scrolls through more of his pictures, but as he does, a faint unhappiness steals over his thoughts. He misses Potya. He’s been so busy getting ready for the competition that he hasn’t felt homesick in days, but now that things are quiet, it’s starting to creep up on him again. He misses being home: lying in his bedroom, reading things on his phone, with Potya curled up on his chest in a purring doze. It’s so weird to be thinking of St. Petersburg as _home;_ when he’s in St. Petersburg, he thinks of Moscow as home, lies there in his rented bedroom missing his grandfather and his mom and the shabby apartment he grew up in.

He always misses the places he isn’t. A month from now he’ll probably be lying in his room, missing Japan, missing his fucking broom closet of a bedroom and the feeling of Yuuri’s hand in his hair.

Yuri swipes over to another gallery of pictures and looks for one of him and his grandfather. He finds one that’s a couple of years old, where he and Grandpa are both smiling as Grandpa rests his hand on Yuri’s shoulder. Yuri’s wearing a gold medal, but he can’t remember which competition it was for. At this point he’s won so many that he’s started losing track. “This is my grandpa,” he says, showing Yuuri.

Yuuri smiles. “He looks proud of you,” he says. “You love him?”

“Yeah,” Yuri says. “More than anything.”

And...he kind of doesn't realize how true that is until he says it out loud. He only sees his grandpa in the off-season, when he goes home to visit Moscow, but during the rest of the year Yuri holds onto the memory of him like a tether. It keeps Yuri focused and reminds him of why he’s trying so hard. “He took care of me more than my mom did, when I was a kid,” Yuri says. “She—”

He pauses, then gets rid of that part of the story with a sharp shake of his head. There’s no point in getting into it; there’s no _agape_ there at all. “He took care of me, and now I can help take care of him,” Yuri says. “The better I skate, the more money they give me, right? It makes things easier.”

He looks over at Yuuri. Yuuri’s face is a little sleepy, but he’s still looking at Yuri, still listening. “That’s why I need Victor,” Yuri says. “I need the best. So I can _be_ the best.”

“You still think Victor’s the best?”

Yuri rolls his eyes, and it makes Yuuri laugh. “I mean, the best skater, yeah,” Yuri says. “For _now._ And maybe he’s the best choreographer, too. But _fuck,_ he’s been a shitty coach so far.”

“He’s new at it,” Yuuri says, with saint-like forgiveness.

Yuri doesn’t dignify that with a reply. He looks at the picture of him and his grandpa again, hovering his finger just underneath the smile on his grandpa’s face. If anyone in this stupid world is _selfless_ , it’s Grandpa. He didn’t have to be the one to step up and take care of Yuri, but he chose to do it anyway. He didn’t have to spend all that time and money on Yuri’s skating, back when Yuri didn’t have any funding, but he did. Yuri loved skating, so his grandpa made sure Yuri could skate. Simple.

And then, when Yuri got funding and sponsorships, he started paying his grandpa back. Also simple. That’s what you _do_ , when it’s your family, and you love them.

Yuri rolls onto his side and faces Yuuri. Yuuri’s looking dangerously sleepy now, his eyes slowly blinking. “No one can be all those things on Victor’s list,” Yuri says. “ _Selfless_ or _uncalculating_ or whatever. But my grandpa...”

His grandpa tries. No one can be completely uncalculating, and no one can be totally selfless, but his grandpa tries, harder than anyone Yuri knows. And sometimes that even helps make _Yuri_ try, too.

Even though Yuri didn’t finish his sentence, the realization must be showing on his face, because Yuuri smiles at him. “Is that it?” Yuuri asks.

It is. _Agape._ Yuri might not have a story, or a character, but he can feel the shape of _agape_ sitting in his chest right now, like a globe of warm light. It's Grandpa's love: a love that makes an effort, even when it’s hard. A love that _tries_.

A wave of pure relief rolls through Yuri. He found it. It took him until the very end of the longest fucking day ever, but he found it. And when he skates his program two days from now, he can hold that feeling inside of him, and let its light spill out onto the ice for everyone else to see.

He kicks one leg forward and jostles Yuuri’s ankle. “I’m gonna fucking beat you now, asshole,” Yuri says.

Yuuri’s eyes drift shut, but the smile stays on his face. “I'm glad I could help,” he says.

The smile slowly softens and falls from the muscles of Yuuri’s mouth as Yuri starts to think about his short program, and _agape,_ and all the changes he could make to his choreography to fit the mood better. At some point, Yuuri’s breathing gets slower and deeper, and Yuri’s pretty sure he’s fallen asleep, right there on Victor’s bed. Yuri’s relief is starting to dwindle into exhaustion, too, but part of him is fighting the idea of falling asleep. Tomorrow morning, when the two of them wake up, everything will go back to normal, and the part where Yuuri lets Yuri kiss him doesn’t fall under the umbrella of _normal_ at all. Tomorrow they’ll just go back to being rivals, fighting for the same prize.

A prize, Yuri has to admit, that he’s not even sure he _wants_ anymore.

Yuri looks at Yuuri’s closed eyes, his dark eyelashes, his slightly parted lips. He feels like a sap and an idiot, but if this is his last opportunity, he has to take it. Yuri lifts his head off the pillow and moves over, leaning in toward Yuuri, tilting his head awkwardly. He kisses Yuuri’s soft, parted lips.

Yuuri doesn’t wake up. The long day and night have knocked him out cold. Yuri retreats back to his own pillow, and as soon as he’s lying on his back, his eyes drift shut. He wonders distantly if he should get up and go to sleep in his own bedroom.

No. If Victor comes back and finds Yuuri lying asleep in his bed, alone, he’s going to think it means something. Yuri’s going to stay exactly where he is.

...

“Yuuri? Yurio?”

Yuri feels something damp against his cheek. He opens his eyes with bleary annoyance to find Makkachin perched on the bed next to him, nosing at his face with curiosity. Yuri lifts his head up and looks around for the source of the voice.

Victor is standing at the foot of the bed. “Why are the two of you sleeping in my room?” he asks curiously. “And why are all my pillows on the floor?”

Yuri notices two things simultaneously. One, Victor looks like absolute shit; and two, there’s _sunlight_ coming through the windows.

A swell of anger makes Yuri sit up ramrod straight. “You _fucking asshole_ ,” he yells, and he hurls his pillow at Victor. On the bed next to him, Yuuri lifts his head up in sleepy confusion, and Yuri yanks _his_ pillow out from under him and hurls it at Victor, too. “We looked for you fucking _everywhere_ last night!” Yuri bellows. “The competition’s in _one goddamn day_ and you’re out drinking ‘til fucking—” Yuri grabs his cell phone off the bed next to him. “— _six_ in the morning!”

“Wow, is it that late?” Victor asks. “I must’ve lost track of the time.” He rubs his face tiredly. “How was the waterfall?”

Oh God, the fucking waterfall. Yuri is about to tell him just how useful that fucking waterfall was when he feels a little nudge against his side. “Good,” Yuuri interjects, sitting up too. “It was good. It worked.”

Yuri is so frothingly angry at Victor that he almost turns to Yuuri and bites his head off. Why is Yuuri saying it worked when it absolutely fucking did not? “It, ah, worked for both of us,” Yuuri continues. “We were both very surprised. Yurio was able to learn something about _agape_ , and I was able to learn something about _eros_.”

Oh. Yuri’s temper slowly subsides. Yuuri’s lying his head off because he’s not about to tell Victor the truth: that he learned something about _eros_ by making out with Yuri on Victor’s own goddamn bed.

Victor looks pleased. “That’s amazing!” he says. “I can’t wait to see how it’s reflected in your programs! But I think—” He yawns. “We’ve still got two hours before the rink opens, so I think I’ll just—take a little—”

Yuuri and Yuri both scramble off the bed as Victor flops down on it. Yuuri picks up a pillow from the floor, since the bed is currently empty of them, and Yuri snatches it out of his hands and delivers it straight to Victor’s face with a violent _thump._ “Ow,” Victor says sleepily, tucking it under his head.

The two of them leave Victor’s room, closing the door behind them, and once they’re further down the hall, Yuri gives Yuuri a little shove. “Now his answer to fucking everything is going to be ‘ _go stand under a waterfall,_ _’”_ Yuri says.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t look sorry: his hair's a mess and he has bags under his eyes, but his expression is full of light and excitement. “He’s wrong about the rink, though. Yuuko said she’d open it early for us, since the competition’s tomorrow. We could have breakfast and go down there right now.”

“Without him?”

“I don’t want to wait,” Yuuri says. “Do you?”

No, he doesn’t. Yuri searches inside himself and tries to find it, that feeling, that awareness. _Agape_. And it’s still there, humming and bright, ready for him to take it out onto the ice with him.

Yuri can't help himself. He leans in and puts his face just a little bit closer to Yuuri’s than normal. “Okay,” he says. “If you’re in such a hurry for me to humiliate you, that’s fine by me.”

And _Yuuri_ leans in a little closer too, with a smile so smug that it’s almost enraging. “I guess we’ll see, huh?” Yuuri says.

That confidence— _Yuri_ put that there. Yuuri didn’t have it yesterday, and now he does. And his stupid _face_ , so close to Yuri’s, like he thinks Yuri won’t just bite him.

Well, fuck _that_.

Yuri leans in and grabs Yuuri’s lower lip between his teeth. And Yuuri makes a burble of sound when he does it, but it sounds amused instead of surprised. He doesn’t pull away like he did last time: his lips close over Yuri’s and squeeze.

Which makes it—not quite a kiss, but not just a bite, either.

When Yuri lets go, Yuuri rocks back a little on his heels, and he doesn’t look angry or shocked at all. He’s smiling. “Come on,” Yuuri says. “If we hurry we can be at the rink in half an hour.”

He turns and heads downstairs. For a second, the fast thump of his feet on the staircase matches the fast thump of Yuri’s heart.

If this is what falls under the umbrella of _normal_ now, Yuri will absolutely take it.


End file.
